English Lesson 23,24,25,26

The famous participants and contributors to the BBC Radio show "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" used their supreme comedic skill to find words beginning with the final four letters of the alphabet as a rich source of comedy. 

I have trawled through the wonderful resource that is the ISIHAC output from the past decades as compiled by Superfan Kevin Hales and dug out a few which I am sorry to say concludes my long running Blog Theme of English Lessons. 

Here goes;

Years- when Kings Charles is really sure about something

Widdecombe- a brush that makes your hair look like a wig

Wished- a card game played when drunk

Wisteria- laughing until you wet your pants

Willy Nilly- the unfortunate outcome of a cycling accident 

Wallaby- aspiration to be a kangaroo

Wanderlust- a promiscuous hitch hiker

Worship- used to be a boat

Wench- a tool belonging to Jonathan Ross

Wholesaler- Moby Dicks lunch

Wisp- a pathetic wasp

Wolverine- a product to freshen the breathe of wolves

Weight Watcher- a passenger on Ryanair

Wristwatch- an all night vigil in a very strict Monastery

Waif- spouse

Wickerwork- an overseas TV journalist

Wink- where Jonathan Ross goes ice skating

Wonder- the period in history before Tudor

Yankee- one who is yanked

Yarmouth- strong alcoholic drink from Norfolk

Yonder- one who yonds

Warthogs- the clothes of a Geordie

Wisteria- a nostalgic form of panic

Warming- a proud Geordie owner of a Chinese Vase

Worm Cast- a downloadable worm

Winnebago- a horse with a bad back

Windbreak- a backward fart

Zebra- the largest cup size in a support garment

Here are a few of our own but a struggle to mere mortals;

Walnut- accidental collision with a house

Wikipedia- a form of perversion about knowledge

Womanhood- headgear from Giliad

Xenon- refusal to accept Xen

X Ray- used to be Ray

Zoological- its just a zoo, stupid!!

Z Bed- a place to have an extremely short snooze

The Flying Member of the Pig Family

The skill of the pilots in hedgehopping through the rural landscape of East Yorkshire was to be admired. 

It used to be every Tuesday that the United States Air Force had a block booking to use the offshore live firing range at RAF Cowden, just to the south of the genteel coastal town of Hornsea. 

The quiet atmosphere of field and shoreline could be shattered in an instant by the staccato peppering sound of the huge 30mm rotating cannon nestled into the nose of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt or as it is perhaps better known because of its rather ungainly appearance- the Warthog. 

Of course, I was always on the lookout on the second day of the working week for a fleeting glimpse of these distinctive aircraft, usually hanging about in pairs and even if not actually seen in flight you could not fail to hear, over a 5 mile or so catchment that gut-rumbling sound of that Gatling Gun. 

I have always been drawn to aeroplanes and from an early age could identify most military types. 

It helped growing up within a few fields of RAF Abingdon and then, after a family house move, on the regular flightpath of Lightnings, Vulcans and Phantoms as they made their way back to their home bases in Lincolnshire. 

I could appreciate the graceful lines of the jet fighters and Delta Wing Bombers and even farther back from watching countless wartime movies featuring the graceful and slender Spitfires and the chunkier but nevertheless beautiful Hurricanes. 

Even in the 1970’s the neighbours would show a mixture of amusement and bewilderment when my younger self would shoot out into the garden shouting about Lancaster bombers for no apparent sense or reason. Somewhere deep down I had picked up that unique sound of four Rolls Royce aero engines and sure enough within a few seconds there would be the ultimate treat of a fly past by the sole surviving airworthy example in the UK on its way back from a display or commemorative event. 

So why was I drawn to the Warthog- without doubt the ugliest plane in existence? 

I suppose it was because at its introduction in 1972 (when I was aged 9) it was one of the first committee rather than purist designed craft, intended to serve a role of agile, low level flying and specifically to try to counter the potentially overwhelming threat to Western Europe by the massed tanks of the Soviet Union. 

It was widely thought by strategists that in the Cold War Era a determined offensive by Communist armour could overrun the multinational defenders in a matter of days. 

The Warthog was a flying platform for up to eight tons of weapons which explained the stubby straight wings. The two General Electric TF34-100 turbofan engines were mounted above and at the rear of the fuselage intentionally to avoid being damaged by debris thrown up during flying. Being positioned slightly upturned the exhaust gases could fool a ground launched heat seeking missile . 

The GAU-8/A cannon was a bit of a throwback to the old single engine fighter weaponry although in the black and white era these were synchronised to fire through the propeller. The 19 foot long cannon fired at 4000 rounds a minute although the pilots were taught to be sparing with the ammunition and would adopt a tactic of just letting loose 50 to 60 rounds in a one second only squeeze of the trigger. 

With this payload came a lower combat speed of 433mph at 5000 feet when carrying bombs and a slightly faster 440mph in low level, unladen mode. 

To offset the risk of being a slow moving target for enemy ground forces the pilot of the Warthog was cocooned in a titanium armoured surround along with the vital instrumentation including the head up display. Power lines and flying controls were duplicated on each side of the fuselage in case of direct damage and such was the stubborn versatility that if automated systems were lost the pilot could still revert to manual controls. Another design characteristic was the ability to operate on short or makeshift runways. 

All pretty high tec for the early 1970’s. 

Of the 713 built,  some 350 are still in existence today although at the high cost of many revisions. 

Boeing took on the contract for a wing replacement programme in 2007 but to date only just over half of the A-10’s have had the work completed. This has placed the remainder of the Warthogs at risk of being permanently grounded and out of service. 

I have not seen or heard an A-10 for some years now as they no longer frequent the coastal range in my area, not on a Tuesday or any other day. 

I do not hold out much hope of seeing them pop their ugly profiles out from the cover of the East Yorkshire countryside any day soon.

(Source; Speed and Power Magazine Issue 86, November 1975)

Florence; roundabout the magic

 It was a pleasantly warm day in Florence, Italy.

Those visitors to the city, like myself, from the colder climates of northern europe were dressed in short sleeved shirts and shorts. Amongst the aromatic odours from the confectioners, bakers, restaurants and trattoria's was the familiar and distinctive fragrance of sun tan lotion on pale freckly skin , a bit premature I thought for what was still only the third week in May.

The local population in contrast hustled through the straggling crocodiles of organised tours being distinguishable by their sporting of full winter coats and ski jackets in the relatively chilly conditions in an eminently fashionable style that only Italians can.

Progress on the flagstone and marble pavements of the narrow streets of three and more storey civic and residential buildings alternated between heat and shade. It was entirely possible to traverse the historic city either in full dazzling sunlight or perpetual cool shadows.

Care had to be taken in negotiating the hordes of tourists who were either wired up to a running commentary from their flag bearing guide at the head of the column or adopting a stop-start policy after catching sight of another ancient statue, church, facade or just a tempting menu displayed on a lecturn at a pavement cafe.

In addition to the groups were the freelancers consisting of individuals or hand-holding couples. They were somewhat obvious in their carrying of their copies of Baedeckers Guide to Florence as though on their own grand tour of the Tuscan region, a customary pursuit for many over the generations. Some clutched  worn paperback editions of Room with a View and Dan Brown's Inferno, the latter in imagining themselves as the main character Robert Langdon on a typically complicated and contrived trail of mystery, mayhem and controversy.

There is no doubting the pedigree of the city as a cradle of creativity in the arts, humanities and science. In the cool, pillared vaults of Santa Croce I wandered about a bit punch drunk with the monuments to Gallileo, Michelangelo, Dante, Da Vinci and Machiavelli all being captured within the same camera phone shot. Being too tight to purchase a definitive guide to the rest of the hallowed sons and daughters of Florence I remained ignorant of the contributions of many others to society, culture and philosophy.

By mid afternoon I was thinking that I had not yet, amongst the great architectural wonders, seen anything like a stone closed spandrel segmental arch bridge. My wife, on her second visit to Florence, sensed in a way that only 25 years of marriage can that I was on the trail of a stone closed spandrel segmental arch bridge and excitedly led me in a remedial but somehow romantic hand held way through further crowds towards the river, the Arno.

Emerging just ahead of me from a shady street after breaking free of my sticky right palm she stood back and gestured at some object of which she obviously had prior knowledge.

I had to just stand and stare.

It was indeed a truly magnificent example of that elusive, and now abbreviated "scssab".
The Ponte Vecchio.

I had of course seen photographs of the thing, not being a complete cultural philistine, but nothing in one dimension could have prepared me for the true scale and splendour of its graceful span over the river and the retained Medieval charm of the shops and kiosks lining the road.

The history bit.....built in 1345 after previous structures had been washed away in the frequently devastating power of the watercourse and after only just survived a similar fate in the 1966 inundation of the old city, it is indeed a unique sight.

Legends and fables abound.

The term bankruptcy is often associated with the practice of breaking up the tables of traders on the bridge by the authorities if the individual was unable to pay his debts.

The bridge was spared, undamaged with the retreat of the German army in 1944, this rumoured to be on the express orders of Hitler, perhaps like me a fan of a stone closed spandrel segmental arch. Other less notable and functional crossing points were destroyed.

 The retail identity of the bridge is firmly in the jewellery sector with small display frontages of high priced items and somewhat spoiled in my mind by a large, gawdy Rolex backlit sign.

I have a built in reflex to usher my wife away from high end goods emporiums but this was proving difficult given the mesmeric effect that the shop windows were having on her. We lingered and dwelled outside a few establishments, with me pretending to have some sophistication and secret affluence in peering dutifully over my wife's shoulder.

We had talked about purchasing a memento from Florence to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. There was some difference in opinion as to what form it would take. I favoured, perhaps, more of a city scene snow-globe type acquisition. It would be a case of compromise obviously taking into account Allison's own expectations of the item.

Something shiny away from the jewellery shops caught my attention and I stood and gawped at the collection of padlocks secured to the superstructure of the Ponte Vecchio.

Apparently it is a tradition, albeit of the modern era, for lovers to write their names or initials on a padlock, fasten it to the bridge and then throw the key into the Arno. Although a waste of a good stout lock it is deemed symbolic of the eternal bond as lovers.

Over the years thousands upon thousands of couples have patronised this practice ultimately to the fiscal benefit of the owner of, surprise, surprise, the only padlock shop trading on the bridge.

The custom became so popular amongst dewy eyed lovers that the city authorities decreed that the bridge was under threat of damage, in effect, from this form of romantic nostalgia.

I have ultimate confidence in a stone closed spandrel segmental arch to carry all manner of imposed loadings including a few extra tons of tempered and forged steel but the main injury to the historic bridge was from the physical attachment of the hasps to railings and the statue of a certain civic dignatory, a Mr Cellini.

I mused, on that hot afternoon about the sacrifices and inevitable price to be paid for love and all things symbolic about love. I concluded that it was 160 Euro's plus the cost of a confiscated padlock, the current sanction imposed by the Florentine City Fathers on those still intent on doing soppy and impetuous things involving vandalism of a public monument.

Now, where did I recall seeing those fabulous snow globes?

Storr Wars

 I wrote recently about the treacle brick built Bettisons Folly in Hornsea, East Yorkshire. It is a slim tower in the middle of the town by which the servants of Mr Bettison could gauge the progress of his journey home from his business interests in the City of Hull and have his evening meal on the table for when he came through his front door.

http://onelastsoul.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/treacle-bricks.html

That was in the early to mid 1800's.

Perhaps Bettison's motivation for his structure was not the guarantee of a hot dinner after a busy working day but a determined bid to upstage another tower just a few miles to the south.

There is however no real competition as Bettison, a brewery owner could not have hoped to emulate the towering edifice of Joseph Storr on Hilston Mount.

Predating Bettisons Folly by nearly 100 years it actually stood for some 60 years with no name before being called The Mount in 1810 and then being renamed to commemorate Storr's son, the renowned Admiral Storr (1709-1783).


His noted naval career earned him the ultimate accolade of a marble tablet and bust in Westminster Abbey amongst the great and the good of British History.

The Abbey memorial has the wording "To the memory of John Storr Esqr. of Hilston in the county of York, Rear Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty's fleet. In his profession a brave & gallant officer, in private life a tender husband, an honest man & a sincere friend".

Achieving the rank of captain on 1 November 1748 he was given command of HMS Gloucester ,a position he held until 1753. He was later posted on HMS St George, a 90-gun ship which he retained until the following year.

In 1757 he took command of HMS Revenge and  in the Battle of Cartagena, Spain on 28th February 1758 off the Spanish port of that name in the Mediterranean a British fleet under the command of Admiral Osborn  blocked the French fleet inside the port, attacked and defeated. The interception of the French fleet was intended to limit the reinforcements sent to the aid of Louisbourg in North America, which was then besieged by the British.

Storr participated in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, Brittany on 20th November 1759, still on HMS Revenge. He was then part of the Red Squadron, the central body of the fleet, under the command of the renowned Admiral Edward Hawke,  From 1760 to 1762 he commanded HMS Monmouth.

These successive commissions coincided with a tumultuous period of British and indeed world history, specifically the Seven Years' War from 1754 to 1763. It involved every European great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain (inc. Prussia, Portugal, Hanover, and other small German states) on one side and the Kingdom of France (inc. Austria-led Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Spain, and Sweden) on the other.

The man, if anything, deserved a tower.

Admiral Storr's Tower  is a fine and imposing building probably intended as a look out on what is only a 15 metre contour height but nevertheless representing some of the highest ground in the otherwise flattish Holderness rural and North Sea coastal area of East Yorkshire.

The Historic England Grade 2 Listing mentions "Orange brick in Flemish bond with header bond to stair turret; stone dressings. 3 storeys. Octagonal tower with projecting semicircular stair turret to north side. Door under flat gauged brick arch beneath datestone with coat of arms, bearing 3 birds. All other openings now blocked with flat gauged brick arches. Coped parapet ramped up to top of stair turret".

Although a distinctive shape and colour in a soft agricultural landscape Admiral Storr's Tower can easily be missed by users of the main road from Withernsea and Roos to Aldbrough and Hornsea and very few actually venture into Hilston if intrigued enough to want a closer look as it consists of only a handful of houses and farmsteads.

Although not very far from the unclassified road there is no actual path nowadays and as a consequence of abandonment and obsolescence people are best advised to keep clear.  A few amateur photographers have framed the tower in different seasonal settings such as the flowing stems of a ripening arable crop or the dark brown and symmetrical lines of newly ploughed acres.

The scene would warrant a photographic calendar all of its own or make for a very interesting time lapse sequence of light and shade under the expansive Holderness sky.

Glanced in the usual manner from a moving car the octagonal brick building cannot be appreciated for its architectural features. At 50 feet high the shape is only interrupted by the semi-circular staircase turret on its northern side. Although it may have been intended as a watch tower it was reputedly a well known reference point for sailors on the North Sea. It served as a hospital for troops camped on the coast in 1794–5 at a time of fears of invasion by an aggressive Post-Revolutionary French regime and later as a cottage, but was disused in 1990.

Ironically Admiral Storr's Tower may have been the reason for the rather freakish bombing of the nearby Histon Church in August 1941 because of its landmark status for the Luftwaffe, thereby inflicting a gross injustice on the reputation of the great naval man and in his own back yard.

The Roos Flashers

I was always a bit reluctant to take out and walk my dogs early in the morning.

This may have partly been down to laziness, the prospect of cold air supplanting that nice cozy, warm position under the duvee or the physical effort to propel my body along vertically when it was so much easier to give in to gravity and just lie prone and horizontal in bed. However, a tangible element in the whole reluctant attitude was that it always seemed to be reported in the media that the gruesome discovery of a body or bodies was always made by a man walking a dog or dogs in the early hours just after dawn.

 

I was happy to leave potential for such discoveries to the likes of taxi-drivers, joggers or the Postman.

 

In much the same chain of thought I always got the impression that men digging ditches, in the old way by hand, were always likely to come up with interesting things.

 

This is borne out by my blog yesterday with the stumbling across, by ditch digging men in 1989 , of the treasure trove of artefacts, thought lost, but actually just stored in the buried basement rooms of the bombed Municipal Museum of Hull since 1943.

 

Of course, any excavations with shovel, pick and wrecking bar can be hazardous for those wielding the implements. In Hull, even today, any construction projects breaking into the heavy clay topsoils whether on a virgin site or previously built upon ground , stand a chance of unearthing unexploded Ordnance from the second world war. An academic year does not go by without a small child bringing in a live ammunition shell with German markings to 'show and tell' to classmates inevitably dug up from an urban flower bed by their Grandfather or Uncle. The sighting of the small white bomb disposal van with Police escort is still very common on our streets. 

 

Other risks include hitting an unforeseen pipe or cable or what must be a horrible initial feeling of the blade of a spade cutting into a human skull just under the surface. I have felt some concern for workers on a large housing estate on the site of derelict docklands close to the City Centre as my perusal of Old Maps indicates the prior existence of a Leprosy and Cholera Hospital. Diagnosis of symptoms of such afflictions may not be covered by Health Insurance if disturbed and made airborne by pick and shovel.

 

On rarer occasions, accepted,  the damp, waterlogged and unpleasant practice of ditch digging may find something fabulously significant;

 

 

Take these cheeky chappies. Just ignore the oversized genitalia for the moment and concentrate on the context of the image.

They were dug up by, yes, by a gang of labouring ditch diggers in 1836 way out towards the seaside town of Withernsea on a tract of agricultural land called Roos Carr. Their antiquity and significance were not really appreciated until modern radio carbon dating techniques were available in archaeological investigation and this revealed  them to be  about 2600 years old, well into the Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Experts without such technological assistance considered their origins as Viking from a raiding party or the work of an enthusiastic lone Scripture themed wood carver and depicting Noah and his family.

The location, so far in the past will have been reasonably inland from the coast particularly given that, in the documented period from the Doomsday Book in 1086 , there was at least three miles to the cliff top rather than about two farmers fields now. The location may have been thickly forested or marshy and barren.

The items, embedded in thick heavy blue clay were well preserved. As well as several of the distinctive and intimidating warrior Figures standing between 35cm and 41cm tall ( see picture above) complete with quartzite eyes and those nifty detachable genitalia, there was a serpent headed boat with paddles, and a wooden box. One of the figures appears to have gone missing until 1902 when it was acquired by Hull Museums after decades of having been played with as a doll by the daughter of one of the original labouring gang.

The Victorians fixed four of the figures with glue and nails into the serpent boat as it was speculated that they belonged as crew. Their prudish attitude either out of denial or to spare the blushes of Museum Visitors considered what was actually intended as the male parts to be short arms.

Carved from Yew their purpose has long since been a matter of informed discussion. The fact that they were buried suggests a Votive Offering to the gods with no intention for them ever to be recovered. The use of Yew is thought to have some significance as it was often associated with particular deities in the prehistoric world of ritual and religion.

Only 9 other similar caricature discoveries have been made in the British Isles and Ireland which makes the Roos Carr figures very important not only in the context of the history of this part of northern and western Europe but in world history. For all that, the figures are not that well known but were voted into the top 100 of the Yorkshire World Collection as part of the London Cultural Olympiad Programme. Presumably some way behind Geoffrey Boycott's cricket bat, Harry Ramsden's Fish and Chip Frying Range, Aunt Bessie's batter puddings, Pontefract Cakes, Black Sheep Ale, a night out in Hull and a picture postcard of Whitby or Scarborough..

Staring down the Barrel

The next time that you go for a sweet biscuit selection to dunk into your cup of tea you may be, unwittingly, perpetuating the memory of a bloody era of European History. 

I am not referring to the Battle of Custard Cream, The Oat Crunchie Crisis or the Digestive Wars but to the emergence of the Italian Nation in the middle of the 19^th Century. 

The name choice for three particular favourite brands hearkens back to the characters and places of that momentous time and although you could argue that this may just have been a clever and catchy bit of marketing and advertising there is no doubt that Garibaldi, Bourbon and Nice were to the forefront in the intentions of the manufacturers. 

There has always been a split in opinion over the pronunciation of the last of these three biscuits. 

Nice to some just means that: pleasant, flavoursome and good. However, delving back into the archives of a number of sources hints at a more Nationalistic origin. The well known institution that is Huntley and Palmers Biscuit Makers brought out a Nice product in 1904 and a Dutch company brought out a similar under the Nizza brand in 1910. This is interesting as Nizza is the former name for what is now the French Riviera City of Nice. 

My local newspaper, The Hull Daily Mail, is purported to have carried an advertisement for Huntley and Palmers in or around 1929 under the strapline of “Delightful as the town after which they were named”. This may have been just been a bit of a reinvention of the product by firmly associating it with the stylish and high society image of that decadent Mediterranean Resort, very much in vogue in the inter war era. 

The naming after the place does have a bit of a twist in that for some time it was occupied by and formed part of the territory of the European Royal House of Bourbon. The chocolate flavour and cream filled Bourbon biscuit was made by Peek Freans, another great manufacturer and first appeared as a Creola in 1910. 

As you can see there was a bit of a competition going on in the first decade of the 20^th for the dominance in the sweet biscuit stakes. 

The Copywriters representing both Huntley and Palmer and Peek Freans will certainly have identified something worth exploiting on the romantic although murderous Italian Revolutionary theme and this was predominantly down to the dominance of the Garibaldi branded biscuit. 

This significantly predated the Nice and Bourbons by some 40 to 50 years and has persisted in being a favourite in the biscuit barrels of the UK ever since. 

Giuseppe Garibaldi does not require any bigging up in terms of his struggles, achievements, folklore reputation and his contribution to the creation of the Italian Nation. 

He actually came from Nizza (Nice) which brings the historic theme of sweet biscuit naming full circle. 

I was brought up, as a treat, on Garibaldi’s. 

That does not necessarily mean that I was a fan of them as they were and still are a bit dry in texture but I could nevertheless easily finish a whole packet of them just on my own. 

To my younger self they were a source of great entertainment what with the currants resembling dead flies and this appearance could thrill and terrify my peers or underlings. 

I have only just become aware of some speculation about the origins of the biscuit and its link to Garibaldi, the hero. This centres on the hardships and  regular privations of the rag-tag army commanded by Garibaldi who often ran out of food in their campaigns to oust the occupiers and foreigners from what was a disparate Appenine Peninsula. 

An often chronic need for sustenance is said to have resulted in a diet of bread soaked in horse blood from a bleed of the cavalry animals and mixed with scavenged berries. Peak Freans did apply a bit of restraint in the subsequent ingredients of their Garibaldi homage.

I wish I had known that aged 8 as I could have had a lot of fun with that sort of revelation.